Shady advice from a raging bitch who has no business answering any of these questions.

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On more fun-sized advice

What if a democrat isn’t elected?
America will double down on its perpetual state of war, the wealth gap will widen, and perhaps worst of all, the Supreme Court will get filled up with a supermajority of regressive right-wing corporate stooges who will fuck up the country for the next quarter century.

What made you decide to own a gun?
I was a victim of gun violence, and for a while, handguns and gunshots were triggers for some pretty serious PTSD symptoms. Becoming a gun owner and learning how to shoot had significant therapeutic value for me. It still does. I suppose there’s also some symbolic value as well, but I would never be so thick-headed as to suggest that I own a gun for “protection.” People who repeat that absurd cliché are such delusional fucking idiots.

We’ve been dating for 4 years. He wants to get married in another two years, I wanted to have been married like yesterday. It feels shitty to give in to his timeline of events and yet – if we both agree on the end goal – why can’t I just be happy and enjoy the wait?
Because deep down you know damn well he’s just stringing you along. (I mean, come on. Is there even a ring on your finger? I didn’t think so.) If he wanted to be married to you, he would be married to you. Clearly, he doesn’t. Hell, it doesn’t even seem like he wants to be engaged to you, so unless there’s some super obvious reason for waiting two years, you should really consider the possibility that he’s only agreeing to marriage on some far-off, theoretical horizon just to shut you up.

I thought I was fine, but he found someone else and now I’m losing my shit. I’ve been with a few dudes since him but haven’t been able to catch any feelings. How do I poise myself against something that unexpectedly hurts like hell all over again?
Yeah, you gotta let it hurt. Fresh pain after your ex falls for someone else is a pretty standard breakup aftershock. Learn to expect that shit, especially if they catch feelings first.

Will going back home ever not make me feel like I’m suffocating?
Maybe, but you’ll have to make yourself a new home before going back to the old one doesn’t suffocate you anymore.

Why does it bug me so much when guys call me a tease?
Because not only are they implying that you use your sexuality as currency, they’re also suggesting that they’re owed some of it.

Going back to my hometown makes me feel like I’m undoing all the progress I’ve made since leaving and diving back into all the bullshit I left behind. Almost everyone from there I care about left a long time ago. I feel restless and slightly uncomfortable for the entire visit.

I can’t speak to why Coquette wrote that, but I’d guess it’s probably because the statistics show that gun ownership is positively correlated with gun injuries and fatalities for everyone who lives in the household with the gun. Even if gun owners are the victim of a violent crime like home invasion, your gun would be more likely to be used against you than to protect you.

I’m running the risk of sounding like a gun lobbyist here, but the statistics you reference, while correct, may also paint a slightly skewed picture. I’d wager that very nearly 100% of the gun injuries and deaths of people with their own firearms are due to improper handling and/or storage of said firearms. In many states, if not most, you can buy a firearm with little or no prior knowledge of firearms, much less safety training.

Now, the usage of an individual’s own firearm against them by, say, a home invader is probably very likely. And there’s really no explaining that sad fact away.

Just because a risk can be mitigated by proper usage and handling doesn’t mean that the risk goes away.

Think of a laboratory. We have to handle and store toxic, radioactive, and corrosive materials at all times, sometimes all three at the same time. They serve a purpose but they also introduce a risk. The risk can be mitigated with things like climate control, ventilation, and plexiglass shields but the risk doesn’t go away. Researchers and bench chemists take the risk because the reward is worth it. But chemists also die in disproportionately high numbers from cancer, radiation sickness, and you will usually find a few examples a year of someone who was blinded or burned from a chemical spill.

I think of gun ownership in the same way. The reward can be the feeling of psychological safety. It could be from getting to know better this thing that frightens you, just like how I respect dangerous chemicals but I’m not frightened of them. But the numbers show that owning a gun will not help with protection. It’s a risk that has to be managed.

I’m fine with accepting the risk of owning a firearm, as I also do not have any children that are forced to accept the risk as well. I also live in a more rural area where law enforcement can’t possibly arrive in less than 10-15 minutes after notification.

I’m also not so sure one of your original points (“logically, guns do not provide protection to their owners”) is factually supported. It’s buttressed up against the idea that ‘firearms are dangerous’, which I don’t think anyone would argue against; but expanding that to ‘they don’t protect’ doesn’t seem reasonable.

You can be unsure all you want; what you want to do is buy into the fallacy that guns provide protection. When I point out that gun ownership correlates positively with accidental homicide and violent crime, you say that data should be discounted because it stems from “improper use.” Well, yes, if we throw out the data that says guns are dangerous then my statement wasn’t factually accurate!

In the real world, you ignore facts at your peril. Enjoy this video explaining why concealed-carry holders aren’t actually prepared for emergency situations: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8QjZY3WiO9s
Then enjoy the fact that five out of six viewers ‘downvoted’ the video and proceeded to leave comments posturing that THEY would be able to shoot their gun in an emergency situation. Bad liberal media! By which I mean ABC!

Or how about we remember Tamir Rice, John Crawford, and Darrien Hunt: all black men who were publicly shot because they appeared to be carrying weapons. I suppose if your armor is white skin then you might truly believe that it’s the gun that provides you with protection.

I’m well aware of the statistics that you reference, and the inferences you’re drawing from them. Just the same, I am also a concealed carry permit holder in my state, and I am under no delusion that I became a crime fighting superhero the minute it was issued to me. I suppose you assume I fit squarely into the boxes you’ve preconceived in your mind?

I regard firearms roughly the same as you probably regard driving your automobile: a very calculated risk. And a calculated risk that – I’ll repeat again – requires safety, practice, and responsibility. And as an aside, I’d be interested in what exactly you would propose as legislation about firearms here in the US (if any)?

As far as your mention of race, it sounded great and would have made a great headline in a social justice warrior blog, but it’s the most blatant red herring I’ve seen all day. The interesting question is if you’d have made that point at all if you hadn’t known I was white.

Coquette. C’mon. There’s a Democrat in office right now who had a Democratic supermajority in Congress and the Senate for basically his entire first term. This is what a Democrat (as a party) run government looks like. Guess what? It’s identical to Republican governance. Leave rhetoric aside, talk is worthless. The only difference between major party candidates is the stuff they say, not what they do. It feels good to hope that someone who actually might win (Hilary) would make a positive difference, but come on here. She’s a piece of shit. Tolerate her focus grouped, dishonest, power-hungry odiousness if you must, but to advocate for her, even as the lesser of two evils, is to debase your power of rational observation.

I like the way Bernie talks – and by that, I mean that he actually sounds like he’s a genuine guy who believes the stuff he says, which watching feels almost hallucinatory because such politicians are so rare – but every program he advocates that everyone’s such a fan of is literal fantasy and all boil down to more free shit for voters (free college free healthcare free daycare free maternity/paternity leave etc) which will supposedly be paid for by soaking the rich. Except even if you straight up confiscated 100% of the total wealth of all the millionaires in this country, you wouldn’t even kill the budget deficit (one year’s deficit, not even the total debt) for a single year, you’d still be 300 billion short, and then there wouldn’t be millionaires for next year. The myth of the millionaire with enough taxable income to pay for 100 more people to live with the extras he’s promising is a myth. Bernie makes you feel good, but other than his anti-war policies the shit he advocates is literally not possible for this country. The countries that are able to “provide” such things for their citizens are stepping away from all of those policies at 100 mph. A platform like Bernie’s buys votes from people who think free stuff is a virtue and who don’t know numbers, or don’t care. I resent being expected to swallow bullshit like that or risk of being accused of not being “idealistic” enough – it’s not morally superior to believe such things without running the numbers just because one resents the state of the U.S.

The democratic debate was hopeful. Candidates talked about pertinent issues. Even though Bernie was a bit clownish I still appreciate his passion and the continued emphasis that nothing can change without millions of people coming together. Short of that I see no wedge to break the front ranks of corporate government entanglement.